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Spring Surprise

Well, once again nature has reminded us that we are powerless to control anything. It rained all day yesterday and it was so cold that I actually wore my COAT to school. Yes, my coat…on May 2. There have been some years in the past when May 2nd meant sun block and popsicles on the playground!

I had to stop for gas on the way home- poor planning indeed- and the bank sign said 49 degrees. I went home and made coffee, turned on the bathroom heater, and put an extra blanket on the bed. I watched House last night with an afghan and a warm cat on my lap!

This is a prime example of “be careful what you wish for”. We have all prayed for an end to the drought. Gary and I have watched the pond level drop and drop and wondered if we would ever see the water lap over the dock again. I was already getting anxious about the next water bill (I imagined the secretary asking, “Did you get a pool?”) But our vision of ending the drought involved gentle spring showers over a period of weeks, NOT 4 inches of rain in two days! And certainly we didn’t order COLD!

That’s what we do. We pray for what we want, but we usually don’t imagine that God will answer in His way and time. We don’t dream that our problems could be solved in another way except the one that our little brains have conjured up. We don’t envision any answer except our own. I’ve always felt that there is no greater analogy to God than the weather. No greater reminder of our own insignificance than the wind. It can be a gentle comfort on a summer’s night, or the destroyer of whole communities.

Thursday is marked on my calendar as “National Day of Prayer”. I usually pray every day, sometimes several times a day, but I think it is important to set aside a day when we join together as a nation and pray for things that affect us as a united community. Certainly there are plenty of reasons to pray for our country this year! But as we pray I want you to think about praying for God’s solutions and His plans and His timing. Perhaps if we stop trying to “figure things out” with our limited brains and even more limited knowledge and stop visualizing the solutions before we pray, we might get some surprises. God’s solutions might involve more patience and more work on our part- they usually do- but they might also be more lasting and beneficial to more people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked God help me reach a goal the way I’ve planned it and He has shown me an entirely different path that was far better. There must be a reason why the Lord’s Prayer says “Thy will be done…”

Today is our field trip. Praise God that several things we have done in the past just didn’t seem right this year or didn’t work out on our calendar! I can just imagine how a play day at the park would have turned out today! Instead we will be warm and dry and enjoy a morning of fun at a local kids’ playroom.

Comments

Well, you know the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for..."

I was brought up not to ask for anything. We had little money and we knew it although we were not supposed to talk about it. We never starved and we had clothes to wear and a roof over our heads, but we were NOT to ask for ANYTHING. That may go a long way in explaining why my three sisters became shop-a-holics along with their other addictions... Love could have filled the gaps, I think, but we didn't get much of that either. Oh well, water under the bridge. I rarely make plans even a month in advance, life seems to have its own ideas about what I will do, despite my own wishes...